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Month: February 2012

Bill Jordens, Witt Anderson, Murray Johnson, Curt Peterson, Kendall Springer, Ken Keating, Chad Price, Alex McNeily, Audrey Bergsma and I all braved the snow, the rain, and the hail to have a perfectly wonderful day on the Kilchis. It was flowing at a great level. Apparently when the Wilson is slowing dropping (2500 to 2450 cfs while we were on the Kilchis) the Kilchis is prime for play and surfing. Long an advocate of the NF Trask, I’m coming around to agreeing with Carl Poston that the Kilchis might be the most beautiful of the two runs … though its still close.

The Butte Creek gauge we use is an algorithm done by Pat Welch, so it’s not an exact reading. On the morning of Feb 18, I checked the gauge and it was 270 and rising. The Molalla, another good reference point was also 1800 and rising. Seemed like good conditions for a run of Butte Creek. What I didn’t know what that as soon as I walked out the door, both readings had hit their high marks and were beginning to fall despite the day’s prediction for at least a 1/10 inch of rain or more. The level ended up being the lowest I’ve ever run Butte Creek. Still fun. Still doable, But a bit sticky on some of the ledges as you’ll see in the video. As we were scouting on the drive up the rapid known as Knucklebuster, a group of Seattle IKers drove up and we started talking to them. They were down here for a run of Butte Creek because of a video they had seen online. With the few times we run Butte Creek a year, what are the chances of a group of paddlers coming from out of state and running into the guy who made the video?

This year’s Sweetheart Paddle was another sweet paddle on the Nehalem River from Vernonia to Big Eddy. The gauge was at 199 cfs, but that’s enough to float your boat and average about 5 MPH on the river. Seventeen LCCC members showed their love of rivers, the outdoors and Mary Ann’s chocolate gluten-free cookies. A big thanks to Mary Ann for organizing.